Saving the Constitution from the courts

In Roosevelt's New Deal days, the threat from the Court was the judges' attempt to run the nation's economy. Now - as the limits of individual freedoms are increasingly unrestrained - Gangi sees a parallel but perhaps more fundamental peril. He challenges the reader to pick up any newspaper and find in it judges telling lawmakers what to do and how to do it. Gangi does not doubt the good will of the reformers; in the short term, recent expansions of rights are beneficial. But, he argues, abuse of judicial power is eroding a more basic American freedom: the people's right to self-government. Gangi is concerned that present justices no longer understand American structures as set up by the framers of the Constitution, and he gives an exhaustive summary of The Federalist Papers, a classic defense of the original document written by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison under the pen name "Publius." Conservatives and liberals alike are guilty, he says. Recent Supreme Courts are an embarrassment to the American political tradition. Troubled by the shadow of a new tyranny, the author does not pull his punches. Where he sees bias masquerading in legal garb, he names it, and he urges activists to stop the "unseemly scurrying to the courts every time a public policy battle is lost." Gangi concludes that if Americans are to regain control of their government, they must first rediscover their faith in democracy. Not everyone will agree with the views espoused in this provocative book, but all who read it will understand a great deal better the critical issues with which it deals.